Scientific American‘s report on the awarding of this year’s Templeton Prize to Brazilian theoretical physicist and cosmologist Marcelo Gleiser, the Appleton Professor of Natural Philosophy and professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College, is fascinating reading.

One could wish that many climate scientists, so over-sure of themselves, would read it and take it to heart. SA reported that the Templeton Foundation awarded the prize to Gleiser because “his status as a leading public intellectual revealing “the historical, philosophical and cultural links between science, the humanities and spirituality.” It highlighted Gleiser’s call to humility among scientists, to the recognition that a “theory of everything,” however attractive, must always remain impossible for finite minds like ours.

Gleiser certainly blasts holes in the overconfidence of people like Michael Mann of (broken) “hockey stick” global temperature record fame.

I would argue, though, that more thorough knowledge of the history and philosophy of science would lead Gleiser to two realizations:

First, Christians, applying to questions about the material world around them the principles (presuppositions, worldview) of the Bible (especially that a rational God created an ordered universe intended to be understood by creatures who share in His rationality), instituted the true scientific method of hypothesis/prediction/observation for falsification or (tentative and always admittedly temporary) affirmation, and that apart from this presupposition it is impossible to justify that (or any other rational method). I discussed this history and this philosophy a bit in my lecture “How Theology Can, and Should, Contribute to Scientific and Public Discourse about Anthropogenic Global Warming,” and in that I cite a number of the historians and philosophers of science who demonstrate that truth.

Second It’s apparent that what Gleiser means by spirituality is a sort of mystical feeling of awe and wonder at the universe around him—awe and wonder that I absolutely believe we should all have. But it’s far from an affirmation that some things in this universe are spirits, that is (as Descartes defined them), not extended (material/energetic) things but thinking things. That is, Gleiser doesn’t seem to think of the human mind as anything other than matter and energy in motion. He seems, in the end, despite his appeals to “spirituality” as awe and wonder, to be a strict metaphysical materialist. Thus, for example, he defines us as “these amazing molecular machines capable of self-awareness.” (Highlighted in green below.)

But the problem with metaphysical materialism (also known as metaphysical naturalism) is that it allows no basis for rationality. That was the point C.S. Lewis made in his book Miracles, in the chapter “The Self-Contradiction of the Naturalist”:

… by Naturalism we mean the doctrine that only Nature—the whole interlocked system—exists. And if that were true, every thing and event would, if we knew enough, be explicable without remainder (no heel-taps) as a necessary product of the system. The whole system being what it is, it ought to be a contradiction in terms if you were not reading this book at the moment; and, conversely, the only cause why you are reading it ought to be that the whole system, at such and such a place and hour, was bound to take that course. …

All possible knowledge … depends on the validity of reasoning. … It follows that no account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was valid, would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid that theory would, of course, be itself demolished. It would have destroyed its own credentials. It would be an argument which proved that no argument was sound—a proof that there are no such things as proofs—which is nonsense.

We must believe in the validity of rational thought, and we must not believe in anything inconsistent with its validity. But we can believe in the validity of thought only under certain conditions. …

We may in fact state it as a rule that no thought is valid if it can be fully explained as the result of irrational causes. …

Obviously, then, the whole process of human thought, what we call Reason, is equally valueless if it is the result of irrational causes. Hence every theory of the universe which makes the human mind a result of irrational causes is inadmissible, for it would be a  proof that there are no such things as proofs. Which is nonsense.

But Naturalism, as commonly held, is precisely a theory of this sort. The mind, like every other particular thing or event, is supposed to be simply the product of the Total System. It is supposed to be that and nothing more, to have no power whatever of “going on of its own accord.” And the Total System is not supposed to be rational. All thoughts whatever are therefore the results of irrational causes, and nothing more than that. The finest piece of scientific reasoning is caused in just the same irrational way as the thoughts of a man has because a bit of bone is pressing on his brain. If we continue to apply our Rule, both are equally valueless. And if we stop applying our Rule we are no better off. For then the Naturalist will have to admit that thoughts produced by lunacy or alcohol or by the mere wish to disbelieve in Naturalism are just as valid as his own thoughts. …

The shortest and simplest form of this argument is that given by Professor J.B.S. Haldane in Possible Worlds (p. 209). He writes: “If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true … and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.” … The trouble about atoms is not that they are material (whatever that may mean) but that they are, presumably, irrational. Or even if they were rational they do not produce my beliefs by honestly arguing with me and proving their point but by compelling me to think in a certain way. I am still subject to brute force: my beliefs have irrational causes.

The whole of Lewis’s chapter (indeed the whole of his book) is well worth reading, but this makes the point.

When two atoms, or molecules, collide, they don’t sit down for a cup of coffee and discuss in which direction and at what speed each will move on from their meeting—they simply exchange energy (losing some in the process) and shoot off in predetermined directions (or, if one accepts a particular version of chaos theory, in unpredetermined directions that are if anything even less rational than predetermined ones would be!).

But humans, with our minds, don’t do that; we meet, discuss, and come to agreement about what we’ll do next. And when we encounter an idea, we don’t respond to it the way two atoms colliding respond to each other; instead, we subject the idea to rational testing—precisely what Gleiser wants people to do more of. But that indicates that we’re not just matter and energy in motion—or “products of the Total System,” as Lewis puts it.

Philip Johnson develops this and related arguments in his book Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law, and Education.(Nancy Pearcey wrote an excellent review of it here.) Christians and non-Christians alike would benefit from reading it.